


The Things We Do For Love

by Bellatrix_Wannabe_89



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Brienne and Tyrion are ONLY friends, F/M, Mentions of Jaime/Cersei, Sad and Sweet, Season 8 is cannon, a wee bit of Jaime bashing, but not super obnoxious, unfortunately, you will need tissues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:46:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27152671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bellatrix_Wannabe_89/pseuds/Bellatrix_Wannabe_89
Summary: Tyrion has a choice. He can tell Brienne the truth about his brother; how he said he never cared for innocents and how he went straight for the castle rather than ring the bells. That would be the right thing to do. Or he could lie, and let her believe the man she loved was the honorable knight she thought he was right up until the end.The choice came shockingly easy.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth, Tyrion Lannister & Brienne of Tarth
Comments: 11
Kudos: 48





	The Things We Do For Love

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by this twitter post https://twitter.com/nethyswain/status/1318352345093296129?s=21 
> 
> Also; the council of surviving characters made no sense so I’m changing it up a bit. No small houses (sorry Brienne & Lord Royce), each Great House gets one vote (sorry Arya), and that’s that. Everything else prior to that is the same though.

Jaime was dead. 

His brother was gone. Crushed under bricks and stone and mortar for a woman Tyrion was SURE he had moved on from. More than that he died a coward. 

Maybe not with tears in his eyes sniveling but Tyrion begged him to ring the bells, ordering a surrender. 

Instead he had gone right to the Red Keep to try to rescue the queen and it had been up to some poor panicking peasant to rush up the stairs and start to ring them in hopes of conveying their wish to surrender instead.

It hadn’t mattered anyway. Daenerys had burned them all anyway, she turned the city and it’s people to ash, and Jaime could have cared less.

“I never did care much for them, innocent or otherwise,” he brooded to Tyrion, a flippancy in his tone that made the dwarf far angrier at his brother than he could have thought possible. 

His brother shoved a sword through his king's back because he cared about innocents, he got his hand chopped off because he cared about saving the virtue of one innocent woman. But apparently none of that mattered now. Innocents no longer mattered, all that mattered to the tall graying lion was their hateful sister who tried to murder them both a few weeks prior.

Tyrion didn’t understand it. He saw the way he rushed from his seat in order to greet the former Maid of Tarth, saw the look of pure love and devotion in his eyes when he knighted her, he saw the way he looked at her from afar, ignoring all else but the tall blonde. During the battle according to the survivors around them they never left one another’s side, risking their own life half a dozen times each to save the other one, fighting as one, mirror images back to back.

Then at the feast he had been laughing and smiling, with an expression far more softer than anything he ever had with Cersei. And what was more, is he saw the look on Ser Brienne's face as well. 

She didn’t smile much, hardly at all, and for good reason. Her big lipped and toothy grin would have been a source of mockery for crueler men, but Jaime looked at it like it was all the gold in Casterly Rock the rare times she wore it. Tyrion was familiar with people like her during balls and gatherings. Her type stayed quiet, shy, hidden away in the corner with hopes to avoid stares and snickers, but quiet women didn’t like to get drunk, didn’t like to laugh at his brothers jokes, didn’t like to talk and have fun with others, didn’t like to uninhibit themselves in the bedroom which is precisely where he wanted those two to be.

So he came over to them and told them they would be playing a game. His truth telling game. 

Brienne was shy at first, taking tepid sips of her wine, merely offering a flicker of a smile at the jokes or questions she asked and answered, but the more the night wore on the more inebriated she became and her smiles grew, and the amount of wine she consumed grew with each round as Tyrion ordered Jaime to ask her more and more questions, even breaking the rules of his own invention so those two could have more moments together. 

When Brienne asked about Tysha it took everything in him not to throttle Jaime for talking about it, and instead Tyrion just pretended it was some light hearted little banter, clutched his glass stem so tight his knuckles turned white, forced a chuckle and downed every last drop of wine in the cup.

He saw the way the two of them were looking at each other, all smiles and softness and grins, and Tyrion decided now would be the perfect time to dirty it up. She would either leave the table, and Jaime would follow to comfort her leading in them two fucking, or the game would inevitably become heated as sexual conquests and raunchy accusations would fly and be exposed, and afterwards Jaime, his mind full of sex and thinking with his lower head rather than his upper, would follow her which, of course, would lead to them fucking.

She was a Highborn woman, an ugly one at that, whose virtues and honor meant the world to her, it would have been more unusual if she  **_HAD_ ** been fucked, but he blurted out that she was a virgin. Her face fell, any priorly earned amusement gone, and embarrassment and shame surged through her in waves as her eyes darted nervously to Jaime.

_ So leaving the table and Jaime following to comfort you it is then. _

“That’s a statement about the present,” Jaime had said in hopes of forcing Tyrion’s hand to ask another question and save her the embarrassment of having to answer, but Tyrion just doubled down, watching with feign upset as she stood from the table, drunkenly announcing she had to piss. Then that bloody unwashed wildling had shown up, drunk out of his ever loving mind, reeking of spilled ale and vomit, and talking in far cruder terms then what he knew, even drunk, the Lady of Tarth would appreciate.

When she pushed past him he made to follow, but Jaime had put a quick end to that, giving him a dangerous smirk and a clap on the shoulder before he hurried off after her.

_ Mission accomplished.  _

Tyrion, drunk off his recent win and the wine, poured his brothers leftover wine in his ale horn and clinked the cup against it, a cold unflinching stoney look in his pale green eyes as he silently warned the red head to never try stealing a lions prey ever again, and walked away from the table, his head held high and proud. 

But that all seemed a lifetime ago. The softness and warmth exuding off his brother, the likes of which he never saw before when he was with Cersei, when he talked about staying in Winterfell with Brienne seemed a lifetime ago. Him telling Tyrion with wet eyes and a trembling voice that Brienne saw the best in him, that she considered him a good man, that she called him honorable and believed it with her whole heart seemed a lifetime ago, his insistence that he knew and saw what Cersei was and would never go back there was a lifetime ago, his goodbye hug, begging Jaime to stay safe and above all stay happy, seemed a lifetime ago.

Then Daenerys told him they found the one handed knight riding south to King’s Landing, Tyrion hadn’t believed it. He wouldn’t leave Brienne, he wouldn’t go back to Cersei. He grew, he changed, she tried to  **_kill_ ** them… It didn’t make any sense. At first he thought Jaime might have been trying to end Cersei. Finish her painlessly so they could avoid bloodshed or beg her to surrender to spare the innocents of the city and afterwards he could hurry on back to Winterfell to be with his knight. 

But when he saw him in that tent, when he saw the familiar look in his eyes when they talked about Cersei, when he proclaimed he never cared about innocents; Tyrion knew the truth. This was who his brother was. Who he was always meant to be.

A dishonorable man, who would die trying to save a woman who tried to murder them rather than live a long and happy life with a kind and decent woman, who didn’t care one way or the other about the innocents of this city. 

But if this was the route his brother chose, so be it. 

He told him to ring the bells, to surrender the city without bloodshed. Jaime resisted, saying there was a chance Cersei could win this war, but Tyrion told him that Daenerys’ army was too good, her last dragon too powerful. Cersei couldn’t win, and the people of King's Landing would suffer for it if they didn’t surrender. In return, Tyrion promised, he would get them a rowboat so they could go to Essos and start a new life there. Looking back he wasn’t sure how a one handed man and a woman who couldn’t lift anything heavier than a crown would have rowed all the way to Essos, but he had been desperate, and it was the only thing he could think of at the time.

Jaime said he would ring the bells, and they shared one last tearful goodbye before he snuck off under cover of darkness. 

That was the last time he ever saw his brother, until he discovered the twins under the bricks, two beautiful golden corpses, and Tyrion wept not just for Jaime, and a little for Cersei, but for the man he could have been and the life he could have had. Instead he choose Cersei, he choose not to ring the bells but to go straight to the Red Keep to try to save her, and he paid the price.

That was three long weeks ago. So much had changed since then. He had been imprisoned for betraying the Queen, and Daenerys, the great hope, had been murdered at Tyrion’s urging and the realm had been left leaderless. And one day he was dragged from his cell, and put in front of members of the other Great House to decide what to do with him, with their country, and with Jon Snow. Tyrion's breath hitched when he saw Sansa, a representative of the great Stark House and the North, cool and stoic as ever.

If she was here, that meant Brienne was here as well.

Word had to have reached the North of Cersei’s demise, but did knowledge of Jaime’s death reach the tall blonde? How they were found, arms wrapped around one another after Jaime sneered that he never cared about innocents and forgo ringing the bells? But he didn’t have time to lament on that for long. 

Sansa Stark for the North, Yara Greyjoy for the Iron Islands, Edmere Tully for the Riverlands, a bastard son of Oberon for House Dorne, little Robin Arryn for the Vale, Robert’s bastard for the Stormlands, Bronn for the Reach, and himself for the Westerlands, all had important choices to make, and the dwarf pushed his dead brothers former lover out of his mind for now. 

At first they debated about Jon. Yara wanted him dead, and Sansa promised in that cool smooth voice of hers that if she hurt Jon, the North would wreak havoc on the Iron Islands, reminding the sailor that her sister was well versed in sneaking up on people with knives and such. Greyworm wanted Tyrion and Jon both burned alive, in the Targaryen way of dealing with traitors, but Sansa again used the threat of not only the North but the Vale and Riverlands and an army of Northmen right outside the gates to dissuade him.

Tyrion suggested that they choose a new king first, and let him decide. A fresh start. Someone who would look beyond petty grievances and bloody histories between the Houses and do what was best for the country as a whole.

Brandon Stark, the dwarf offered. He would be fair. He would be impartial. He wouldn’t want to conquer lands like Daenerys had, he wouldn’t want power merely for powers sake like Cersei, he wouldn’t be cruel like Joffrey or weak like Tommen, he wouldn’t drink and whore away his money like Robert. He had magic Tyrion didn’t quite understand, but he held the histories of Westeros in his head, he knew the future, the present, the past… He would learn from all mistakes other kings have made and know what choices would work out in the end. He would be a good king, Tyrion said. Let Bran decide his and Jons fate, and rather that be execution or some other form of punishment, Tyrion and Jon would accept it without argument.

Sansa said that he wouldn’t work, that her brother couldn’t have children and when he died they would be in the same situation they were in now. Tyrion lamented that perhaps the situation they were in now was a blessing in disguise. The blood of kings didn’t make you a good ruler, they could all attest to that, so maybe a vote was best. The leaders of the Great Houses would gather after a monarch's death, right here in the Dragon Pit, and vote for their new king or queen. They would decide who the best person would be for the country and for the small folk who lived on their lands. The Ironborn choose their leaders in a similar fashion as did the Nightswatch so it wasn’t entirely unheard of, and they could be voted out if it turned out they had elected another Aerys or Robert by mistake.

It was a clever concept. One they all agreed would work, so Bran was wheeled out to the Dragon Pit by Arya, face blank with no emotions, and sat silently as they all voted for the young wolf pup, all except Sansa who declared the North would remain an independent kingdom. Bran agreed, and that was that. Seven kingdoms were now six.

He said the punishment for Jon would be exile to the Wall, a fitting one for a man who murdered to prevent more bloodshed, but who still murdered nonetheless, and Tyrion breathed easier. If he wasn’t sending Jon to the wall for murder then surely treason wouldn’t bring about the executioners ax either.

He was proven right when he decreed Tyrion's punishment wouldn’t be exile or death or a few years in the dungeon. It would be to serve as Hand. 

Again. 

In this shithole of a city that was half burnt.

Tyrion couldn’t think of a worst punishment and he begged Bran to reconsider, to choose ANYONE else but him. Bran told him, in a voice that left no room for argument, that Tyrion was a major player in helping to cause this whole mess, so he would spend the rest of his days cleaning it up, and that was that as well.

Bran was king, Tyrion was his Hand, and now he had to go and tell his would-be widowed Goodsister that her one and only lover that she thought was such a good man died a dishonorable liar.

Her room was of middling size in some forgotten wing but then again there wasn’t much left to the castle to pick and choose. When he knocked on her door a moment later she answered, and when she saw who it was she immediately kneeled to the ground so that Tyrion didn’t have to break his neck looking up at her, a courtesy Jaime would often use when they were speaking for a while or if something serious needed to be said.

It was strange. She was only an inch or so taller than Jaime, and she was thinner to boot, but she seemed so much more taller, so much more massive. 

“Is he alive?” she asked as soon as her knees hit the ground, voice breathless. “The invite to Sansa only mentioned Cersei’s death and I haven’t- we only just arrived an hour ago and when I asked to speak to you they told me I couldn’t but I-...”

Her words fell away as Tyrion looked at her, the answer written on his face as plain as day. That small little glimmer of hope in her eyes was dashed away, replaced by tears that, warrior as she was, the knight wasn’t strong enough to hide.

“My Lady,” Tyrion said gently, resting a hand on her broad shoulder. “I am so sorry.”

Brienne said nothing. She just closed her eyes as tears rushed down her pale white cheeks. She stood and went over to sit on her bed, wrapping her arms around herself, bowing her head as silent sobs made her whole body tremble.

Tyrion stood in the doorway, a flush creeping up his face unsure what to do. She hadn’t sent him away, but he was unsure how much of his presence would be a comfort to her.

He took a step further into the room, and then another, quietly shutting the door behind him so she could have some semblance of privacy.

“Please tell me it wasn’t fire,” a shaky teary whisper begged. “Please. He hated-... in his nightmares he could never stop Aerys or Daenerys or-... or her, after the sept.”

“He wasn’t burned,” Tyrion said quickly, desperate to give this woman some kind of comfort. “He was in the castle when it collapsed, he wasn’t hurt by the flames.”

Brienne wiped at her eyes and raised her head. Big blue eyes were rimmed red with tears, and Tyrion felt a new rage seethe for Jaime. Seeing this woman, this good honorable woman, this strong fierce warrior so hurt and vulnerable… How could Jaime have ever left her?

“I should have gone after him,” she said. “I should have offered to help save his sister, maybe then he would-... he and Cersei  _ both _ would have walked away unscathed.”

“This wasn’t your fault, My Lady.” He tried to be as soft spoken as he could. “None of it. He knew the price of coming back and he came back anyway. Him making a foolish dishonorable choice isn’t worth your guilt or your tears.”

Her eyes grew wet again. “I thought he was a good man,” Brienne whispered. “From the moment he told me-.” She looked away from the dwarf, worrying at her lip, and Tyrions heart shattered in his breast. Even in death she would keep his brothers secrets. “I thought he was honorable but he wasn’t. He wasn’t good, he wasn’t honorable, he wasn’t anything but hers.”

The tears came quicker now, and her voice trembled at the last admittance. Her heart, her soul, the most beautiful soul in Westeros, broke from the weight of a heavy truth that she finally was admitting to herself. Even wet with tears her eyes were the most beautiful Tyrion had ever seen. More than Cersei’s or Sansas, even Shae or Daenerys; he understood now how Jaime could just fall into them. They are big and blue and guileless; two pools of astonishing sapphires that reminded Tyrion of Tysha. Hers had been a dark hazel flecked with brown rather than the brilliant shade of blue the Tarth girl had, but that innocence and purity and softness on them was all the same.

Maybe that was why he said what he said. Maybe that was why he blurted out his lies, why he set aside his bounds to the truth… Or maybe it was because he couldn’t stand to see this good hearted woman so broken up and devastated over the man she loved not being who she thought he was. 

“He tried to stop Daenerys.”

Brienne furrowed her brow. A shaking hand came up and wiped away her tears. “He what?”

“Jaime, he tried to stop Daenerys.” Tyrion hoped the lie sounded as effortless as it might have if it came from Varys or Cersei’s mouth. “He came to her tent and begged her to reconsider the assault on King's Landing. He said he knew she was hurting but that didn’t justify the slaughter that would take place.” He looked straight into her eyes. “He said he couldn’t let the innocents of this city get hurt.”

Brienne’s thick jaw dropped, and those eyes his brother loved so much went wide. “He-... Jaime went against the dragon queen?”

“He did.” The lie was coming easier now. “In front of her Unsullied and Bloodriders, he begged her to take the city peacefully but she was too far gone, too mad in her grief and she ordered him taken prisoner. That’s why I was in chains when you arrived, when I went to visit Jaime I freed him. We hatched a plan; he would ring the bells and signal surrender so that Daenerys would stand down, and afterwards he would try to save Cersei.”

The spark, that flicker of hope was back in her eyes. It hadn’t mattered that he said Jaime went to go save the woman he left her for, it hadn’t mattered that he failed. To Brienne; her beliefs that he was a good man, that he was an honorable knight remained true, and that was all that counted. 

“He tried to save the city.” A flicker of a soft smile pulled at her lips. “Just like before.” 

Tyrion didn’t have the heart to ask what she meant by that. 

“He did. I was there, on the edge of the battlefield. I saw a flash of gold in the bell tower just before the burning started. It was Jaime. He did what she promised to do, he tried to spare the innocents, but Daenerys ignored the bells and brought fire and blood instead of mercy.”

Brienne bowed her head again, a silent prayer on her lips before she looked at him again. “I’m sorry that she did that. She… she seemed like she would have been a formidable monarch had she not gone mad with grief,” Brienne settled on, loyalty to Sansa outweighing any clear and concise praise for the dragon queen.

Sansa. Bran. All of it came rushing back to Tyrion. He probably should tell her they had a new king.

“There’s something else I wanted to tell you,” Tyrion began. “We have a new king. Brandon of House Stark, the first of his name, King of the Andals and the First Men, Lord of the Six Kingdoms-.”

“Seven.”

“Six. Your Lady Sansa petitioned for Northern independence and Bran gave it.”

A smile lit up her face. “Good for her. But…” She worried at her lip again. “He’s not… the most emotional boy.”

“No but perhaps that’s what we need. Just cold facts, decisions based on past experiences.”

“That’s not-...” Brienne wrapped her arms around herself and a blush stole up her cheeks. He gathered she was not used to arguing politics. “You need empathy to rule,” she muttered, as if Tyrion might laugh at her for the take. “You need stoic decisiveness in some cases yes, but you also need love and respect. You need to govern with kindness as well as cold hard facts.”

Tyrion nodded, letting the words marinate for a moment before he offered a response. “You’re absolutely right,” he told the knight firmly, hoping she didn’t think he was mocking her. “But since our king is incapable of that, as his Hand-.”

“Congratulations.”

“Thank you. But as his Hand, it’s my job to do what the King cannot, which will be to fill his counsel with those with brilliant minds and stout hearts.”  _ And Bronn. If I’m going to be surrounded by those too honorable to truly play the game I need him as an ally. _ “Which is why, Ser Brienne, I’m offering you the appointment of Lord Commander of the Kingsguard.”

Her big blue eyes went wide with shock, and her mouth open and closed several times. “I’m-... I’m honored, Tyrion, truly, but-.”

“You’re the most honorable knight in Westeros. You’re one of the best swordsmen, and you will not ever forget to remind our king that honor and decency should always play a factor in part of his decisions. You would make an ideal Lord Commander. Or Lady Commander, as it were.”

“I- I’m a woman. The laws state-.”

“If only you were on good terms with say the kings sister or the Hand so that he might be able to change those antiqued laws.”

She swallowed hard. “My father, he-... I am the only heir to Tarth and Kingsguard serve the realm for life. I can’t abandon my island or people.”

Tyrion shrugged. “Cersei Lannister broke the president when she sent away Barristan Selmy and Tommen continued that when he sent away Jaime. Either way since we’re already throwing away the law about your sex I don’t see why we can’t amend that rule as well, to allow them leave when higher duties call or if they’re unfit for service. You serve until your father passws, and then you take your title of Evenstar.” He could see the argument in her dying so he pressed on, hitting at the one buttons that he knew was holding her back more than anything. “Lady Sansa will be crowned Queen in the North. Knights do not exist beyond the Twins, it is a strictly Southern title, nor do the Queensguard. More than like her subjects will order you, a Southener who laid with a Lannister, set aside and she will do it, because she’s a good enough rumer to know that her friendship with you and your devotion to her should not come before when her people want.” 

Brienne bowed her head, and he knew his words rang true. He rested a hand on her shoulder. “You swore to protect Lady Catelyn's daughters,” he said gently. “You’ve done that. Swear now to protect her last living son.” A deep breath, and then. “Jaime, he talked loudly and often about how low the Kingsguard has fallen. How corrupt and dishonorable it had become. He was trying to fix it before he was dismissed. He was trying to make it an honorable institution again.”

_ That did it.  _

Brienne wrapped her hand around the hilt of her sword, valyrian steel with gold lions on the pommel, a priceless gift Tywin gave Jaime a lifetime ago that he in turn gave to her. “I will serve as Lord Commander of the Kingsguard,” she said in a stubborn firm voice. “I will serve our realm and our king honorably, and I will choose nothing but the most trustworthy and virtuous knights in the realm to serve under me.”

Tyrion smiled and got off the bed. “I will inform the king of his new appointment at once. The White Sword Tower was spared in the fire, so I’ll have your things moved up at once.” His eyes fell to the dark blue armor in the corner, another gift from his brother, and hers followed. “I’ll allow you to design the new Kingsguard armor for you and your men, so that you may take inspiration from… wherever you see fit.”

“Thank you.” Her eyes grew wet again but she managed to blink away her tears. “For  _ everything  _ Tyrion.”

A lump caught in his throat as he looked at her. Rather than try to speak he just gave her a firm nod and turned to leave. She asked the Hand to send up Podrick if he saw him and he said he would, and then headed out of her chambers, shutting the door behind him. The dwarf leaned his head against the thick oak of the door, silent tears running down his scarred face.

Tyrion would keep this lies to his grave, for Jaime and for Brienne both. He would let her think the best about the man who hurt her, he would let her think in his last hours he tried to save the people of this city rather than met them fall to the flames with no thought to them.

“The things I do for love,” Tyrion muttered to himself before he pushed off from the door and headed down the corridor.

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